Method and system for wireless communication between a telephone and a hearing aid

ABSTRACT

The present invention relates to a system comprising a telephone ( 10 ) and a hearing aid ( 40 ). The analog signal to the loudspeaker ( 11 ) of the telephone ( 10 ) is picked up and digitalized at the telephone where after it is wirelessly transmitted to the hearing aid ( 40 ) using a radio transceiver at the telephone ( 10 ), coupling with a radio at the hearing aid. The sound from the telephone ( 10 ) is hereby transmitted directly to the hearing aid without relying on the acoustic coupling between the telephone speaker ( 11 ) and the hearing aid microphones and may further be transmitted to both left and right hearing aid at the same time. The invention provides a telephone, a hearing aid and a method of communicating with a hearing aid.

RELATED APPLICATIONS

The present application is a continuation-in-part of applicationPCT/EP2010070450, filed on 22 Dec. 2010, in Europe, and published asWO2012084026 A1.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to hearing aids. The invention furtherrelates to a telephone adapted for communicating with a hearing aid. Theinvention also relates to a method of communicating with a hearing aid.

The invention more specifically relates to a telephone and to aprogrammable hearing aid to be located at or in the ear of a user. Theinvention more particularly relates to using such a hearing aid inco-operation with a telephone by creating a wireless link from thetelephone to the hearing aid.

2. The Prior Art

WO-A1-2006/097099 describes a cell phone with a plug-in device forcommunicating with a hearing aid, whereby the cell phone with plug-indevice can be used as a remote control for a hearing aid.

US-B2-7657049 describes a telephone handset with a hearing aidcompatible coil for inductively coupling with the telecoil at thehearing aid in order to inductively transmit sound from the telephonespeaker to the telecoil of the hearing aid.

US-A1-20100128908 describes a telephone including a hearing aid chip foramplifying the acoustic output sound from the telephone according to thehearing threshold of the user.

Application PCT/DK2009/050274 filed on 15 Oct. 2009 in Denmark, andpublished as WO-A1-2011044898 describes a codec for coding and decodingof wirelessly transmitted data to and from a hearing aid to reduce thebit stream and hereby the power consumption of the hearing aid whilemaintaining a strong wireless signal for transferring data and sound toand from a hearing aid.

US-A1 2010/0142738 discloses a hearing aid where some settings can becontrolled via acoustic signals. For instance if the hearing aid userwhishes to increase the volume, he may do so by typing a prescribed keystring on the telephone. This will give rise to a corresponding acousticoutput from the telephone, which may be interpreted by the hearing aidas e.g. a volume control signal.

In the context of the present disclosure, a hearing aid is defined as asmall, battery-powered device, comprising a microphone, an audioprocessor and an acoustic output transducer, configured to be worn in orbehind the ear by a hearing-impaired person. By fitting the hearing aidaccording to a prescription calculated from a measurement of a hearingloss of the user, the hearing aid may amplify sound in certain frequencybands in order to compensate the hearing loss in those frequency bands.In order to provide an accurate and flexible amplification, most modernhearing aids are of the digital variety which can be programmed to fitthe users prescription.

For many users of hearing aids today, the use of telephones inconnection with their hearing aid is difficult, as relying on theacoustic path from the telephone speaker to the eardrum via the hearingaid does not provide the optimum rendering of the sound. This isespecially a problem when using a “behind the ear” (BTE) hearing aid, asthe microphones of such hearing aids are located above the ear, therebyremoved from the telephone loudspeaker when the telephone is held in thenormal position. Even a user skilled in positioning the telephoneloudspeaker in a position closer to the microphone of the hearing aid,will experience a signal reduction of about 10-20 dB. At thecontralateral ear, i.e. the ear opposite the one where the telephone isplaced, there will be no signal at all.

Several manufacturers of hearing aids and telephone systems have triedto overcome this problem, in different ways. One common way to try toovercome this problem has been to rely on the coil of the telephonespeaker to excite the telecoil of the hearing aid, whereby the soundfrom the telephone is transferred to the hearing aid inductively.However with many modern telephones, the speaker coil is too small tocreate a magnetic field with sufficient signal strength.

Another solution has been to Bluetooth-enable the hearing aid and thenpair up the hearing aid with the telephone. A Bluetooth signal from thetelephone can then be picked up by the hearing aid and decoded to forman amplified acoustic sound to the user of the hearing aid. Thissolution has several disadvantages. Bluetooth is very power consuming,the hearing aid and the telephone have to be paired, and because theBluetooth link is very power consuming, the link has to be disabledafter every call and then enabled and paired again before a new call,which is all very time consuming for answering a call. A furtherdisadvantage when using Bluetooth technology is the delay time. Whendealing with real time audio signals, the delay time should preferablybe less than 10 ms. If the delay is more than approximately 10 ms thedelay will be noticeable for the user, as the same sound arrives at theear drum at a first time instance due to direct sound transmission andat a second time instance due to the sound being delayed by signalprocessing and transmission time. In Bluetooth devices the delay time ismore than 10 ms.

Yet another solution has been to adjust the sound from the telephone tocompensate the hearing impaired persons hearing loss. This has thedisadvantage that the hearing impaired person would have to take off thehearing aids before making a phone call, and that the telephone wouldonly be usable for the hearing impaired, as the sound would be much toloud for normal hearing people. Furthermore the telephone would have tobe fitted by a hearing care professional to the exact hearing loss theimpaired is suffering, something which would be very time consuming andcostly.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention in a first aspect provides a telephone adapted forcommunicating with a hearing aid, said telephone comprising a telephoneloudspeaker, an electrical signal line for exciting the loudspeaker, aradio transceiver adapted for communicating with a hearing aid radiounit, and an interface circuit, said interface circuit having ananalogue to digital converter, said interface circuit being connected toobtain an electrical signal from said electrical signal line and beingadapted for converting said electrical signal into a digital signal bythe analog to digital converter and for transmitting said digital signalto the hearing aid, using said radio transceiver.

According to an aspect of the invention, an electronic circuit having aradio transceiver using a hearing aid compatible radio protocol is builtinto the telephone and connected to the telephone microphone and speakerand to the telephone power supply. The interface circuit receives thesignal leading to the telephone speaker, converts the signal into adigital signal, encodes the digital signal, and transmits it through awireless link to the hearing aid. The interface circuit interfaces withall kinds of telephones with a minimum of modifications required in thetelephone, and it does not impair or modify normal function of thetelephone.

In an embodiment of the invention, the system can be used forprogramming or changing the setting of the hearing aid via Dual ToneMultiple Frequency (DTMF) tones. In this embodiment, the system is ableto acknowledge the programming by automatically sending a message fromthe hearing aid via the telephone to the programmer at the other end ofthe telephone line.

Furthermore, the system can be a full duplex system, where the hearingaid is able to transmit messages to the telephone via the wireless link,e.g. the hearing aid may acknowledge the re-setting or adjustment usingthe wireless link, so that an acoustic acknowledge signal is sent overthe telephone line to a hearing aid professional.

The invention in a second aspect provides a hearing aid comprising ahearing aid comprising a radio circuit adapted for communication with atelephone, said telephone having a telephone loudspeaker, an electricalsignal line for exciting the loudspeaker, a radio transceiver adaptedfor communicating with said hearing aid radio circuit, and an interfacecircuit, said interface circuit being connected to obtain an electricalsignal from said electrical signal line and being adapted for convertingsaid electrical signal into a digital signal by an analog to digitalconverter and for transmitting said digital signal to the hearing aidusing said radio transceiver, wherein parameters of the hearing aid canbe adjusted by tones sent over a telephone network to said telephone andfrom there to the hearing aid radio circuit.

The invention in a third aspect provides a method for adjustingparameters of a hearing aid comprising: selecting a first telephone,said first telephone having a telephone loudspeaker, an electricalsignal line for exciting the loudspeaker, a radio transceiver, and aninterface circuit; obtaining by said interface circuit an electricalsignal from said electrical signal line; converting said electricalsignal into a digital signal by an analog to digital converter;transmitting said digital signal to the hearing aid using said radiotransceiver; sending a tone sequence from said first telephone to thehearing aid; determining by said hearing aid whether the tones containan adjustment code for adjusting said parameters of the hearing aid;and, in the affirmative, adjusting the parameters of the hearing aid.

The invention in a fourth aspect provides a method for communicatingbetween a telephone and a hearing aid, the telephone having a telephoneloudspeaker, and an electrical signal line for exciting the loudspeaker,comprising the steps of: providing in the telephone a radio transceiverand an interface circuit; connecting the interface circuit to theelectrical signal line for obtaining an electrical signal from theelectrical signal line; converting the electrical signal into a digitalsignal; and transmitting by the radio transceiver the digital signal tothe hearing aid.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

By way of example, there is shown and described a preferred embodimentof this invention. As will be realized, the invention has severaladditional embodiments, and its several details are capable ofmodification in various, obvious aspects all without departing from theinvention. Accordingly, the drawings and descriptions will be regardedas illustrative in nature and not as restrictive.

In the drawings:

FIG. 1 illustrates a telephone having means for sending a wirelesssignal to the hearing aid;

FIG. 2 is a diagram containing the different components of a systemaccording to an embodiment of the invention, containing two hearing aidsand one telephone;

FIG. 3 is a flowchart for a hearing aid receiving data from a telephone;and

FIG. 4 is a flowchart for the interface circuit within the telephone,when communicating with the hearing aid.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

In the present context, the word telephone can mean any type oftelephone, i.e. a handset for a traditional landline telephone, acordless telephone like a Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications(DECT) phone, a cell phone or any other type of telephone. The signalline leading to the speaker may be any kind of transmission line, e.g. aline for transmitting an analogue signal, a sigma-delta signal, or apure digital signal.

FIG. 1 is a diagram of the interface circuit 14 incorporated in atelephone 10, which further has a microphone 12 and a loudspeaker 11.The interface circuit 14 is connected to the microphone 12, theloudspeaker 11 and a telephone power supply (not shown). The interfacecircuit 14 has a radio transceiver and antenna circuitry forestablishing a wireless link 30 between the telephone 10 and one or morehearing aids 40. A hearing aid 40 has a signal processor 20 with awireless capability.

FIG. 2 shows the components in a system according to an embodiment ofthe invention with binaural hearing aids. The system comprises twoidentical hearing aids 20, left and right, and a telephone 10 having aspeaker 11, a microphone 12, an electronic phone circuit 13 for handlingphone processing, and interface circuit 14. Said interface circuit 14 isconnected to the microphone, speaker and power supply of the telephone.The interface circuit 14 comprises a digital to analog (D/A) converter22, an analogue-to-digital (A/D) converter 21, an EEPROM 26, a signalprocessor 23, a radio transceiver 24 and an antenna 25 for communicatingwith the hearing aids 20. Each of the two hearing aids 20 comprises amicrophone 28 for picking up acoustic sound from the surroundings, ananalog to digital converter 21 for digitizing said acoustic sound, asignal processing unit 23, a radio circuit 24, an EEPROM 26, a D/Aconverter 22, and a receiver (hearing aid loudspeaker) 27.

FIG. 3 is a flow chart of the decision flow in a hearing aid receivingdata from a telephone. Data received by the antenna is interpretedaccording to a reception protocol. The reception protocol interpretswhether the received data is encoded audio, commands, or an acknowledgesignal from another device on a previous sent command. If the receiveddata is encoded audio, the data is decoded and processed like audioreceived by the hearing aid microphones. If the received data containsan acknowledge signal from another device, i.e. the contralateralhearing aid, the acknowledge signal may be stored in a log (not shown)and processed according to the transmission protocol and then relayed onto the device having sent the original command.

If the received data contains a command, it should first be interpretedwhether the command is intended for the first or second hearing aid, asthe user may not hold the telephone near the hearing aid for which thecommand is intended. In the case where the ipselateral hearing aid (i.e.

the hearing aid at the side of the telephone) is used as a relay devicebetween the telephone and the contralateral hearing aid (i.e. thehearing aid at the side opposite the side of the telephone) and acommand is intended for the second hearing aid, the transmissionprotocol will ensure that it is relayed over to the contralateralhearing aid. In the case where the command is intended for theipselateral hearing aid, the command is first interpreted. Onceinterpreted, the command may either be performed directly or by firstgetting information from the EEPROM and then performing the command.Performing the command may further comprise writing data to the EEPROM.Once the command has been performed, it is often desirable to send amessage to the other device that the command has been performedsuccessfully, or that the command has not been performed. This messageis stored in the EEPROM, and transmitted to the other device accordingto the transmission protocol.

FIG. 4 is a flow chart of the decision logic of the telephone interfacecircuit, in the case where the telephone handles the reprogramming oradjustment of the hearing aid. The interface circuit and hereby theradio transceiver is enabled by the biasing signal to the telephonemicrophone signal (not shown). The electronic interface circuit isenabled for picking up the electrical signal adapted to excite theloudspeaker. The reception protocol determines whether the audio signalis ordinary audio, or a data command, like DTMF. The audio signal iscoded and sent to the hearing aid via the wireless link using thespecific transmission protocol and the radio transceiver. When thereception protocol interprets the audio signal to be a sequence of toneslike DTMF, the tone sequence is decoded and interpreted using a look-uptable at the command generator. The corresponding parameter adjustmentsignal is sent to the hearing aid via the transmission protocol and theradio link.

The command generator also triggers a timer. If the parameter adjustmentis implemented successfully, the radio receives an acknowledge signal,which will be interpreted according to the reception protocol triggeringthe reset of the timer. This will then trigger a speech or soundgenerator, generating a digital speech signal which is converted into ananalogue signal in the D/A converter and finally super imposed onto tothe microphone signal. By adding the generated sound to the microphonesignal, the sound acknowledging the parameter adjustment in the hearingaid will be communicated over the telephone network to inform thehearing aid professional initiating the reprogramming, that thereprogramming has been successful. In case that the reprogramming wasnot successful, no acknowledge message is received at the radiotransceiver and the timer is consequently not reset. This will thentrigger another message by the speech/sound generator, that thereprogramming was not successful. This signal is sent to the hearingcare professional like explained previously.

The present invention can be used with any kind of telephone. Aninterface circuit is built into the telephone. A suitable interfacecircuit typically has the size of a few square millimeters and less thanone millimeter in thickness, and thus any kind of telephone can bemodified to accommodate this additional interface circuit. The interfacecircuit is connected to the telephone power supply, microphone, andspeaker. The interface circuit may be powered by the bias voltage to themicrophone, hereby decreasing the complexity in wiring the interfacecircuit in the telephone.

When a user of this system answers, or makes a call, he lifts thehandset of his landline telephone or presses a button on the cell phoneor DECT (Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunication) telephone formaking the call, whereby the microphone is biased. The microphonebiasing will enable the radio line in the electronic interface circuit14. The interface circuit 14 in the telephone picks up the analog signalfrom the telephone speaker, converts it into a digital signal in the A/Dconverter 21, prepares the digital signal for being transmitted over thewireless link in the processor 23 and transmits it to the hearing aidvia the radio transceiver 24 and the antenna 25. The hearing aid 20 thenreceives the source sound as played by the telephone speaker via thewireless link from the telephone 10, the antenna 25 and the radiotransceiver 24 instead of, or in addition to, the acoustic soundreceived. The digital signal is then processed according to the hearingprescription of the user in the hearing aid signal processor 23,converted into analog in the D/A converter 22 and rendered as anacoustic sound using the hearing aid receiver. The user hereby gets thetelephone signal by the acoustic sound directly from the telephone,practically simultaneously with the signal through the hearing aid,without relying on a poor acoustic coupling between the telephonespeaker and the hearing aid microphone or other less preferred systemshaving poor signal to noise ratio.

In an embodiment the wirelessly transmitted signal is received by bothhearing aids, while the telephone is near one ear, as the range oftransmission, under normal circumstances, can extend across the width ofa users head. The user hereby gets a binaural signal and hereby a bettertotal signal to noise ratio. In another embodiment, the ipselateralhearing aid receiving the signal from the telephone relays the data tothe contralateral hearing aid.

Furthermore, in order to increase the signal to noise ratio for the userreceiving or making a phone call, the hearing aids may disable thehearing aid microphones 28, or decrease the gain applied to themicrophone signals, as long as the hearing aids are receiving wirelesslytransmitted digital audio from the telephone.

In a further embodiment, the interface can be used for adjusting orreprogramming the hearing aid, preferably by using DTMF tones. If theuser is dissatisfied with the settings of the hearing aid, the user maycall the dispenser of the hearing aid to explain the dispenser in whichsituations certain sounds are perceived as too loud, too soft etc. Ifthe dispenser recognizes the solution to the problem as described overthe telephone by the user, the dispenser will first recall the settingsof the particular hearing aid from a database, via the fitting software.Using the fitting software, the dispenser will then adjust the settingsof the hearing aid via DTMF tones sent over the telephone line to thehearing aid. As the tones will be transmitted directly to the hearingaid using the digital wireless link, there is no acoustic loss in thetransmission.

The dispenser may be able to transmit the DTMF code for solving theparticular problem, directly from his computer if the computer iscoupled to the telephone line, e.g. if the dispenser is using IPtelephony. Otherwise the fitting software may display a key sequence,which the dispenser could type on a telephone keypad, in order to sendthe correct DTMF sequence to the hearing aid. Still further, the DTMFsequence may be played by the fitting software, in order that thedispenser may hold the telephone near the speaker coupled to thecomputer running the fitting software, to have the tones sent over thetelephone network and recognized by the hearing aid.

According to an aspect of the invention, the adjustment of a hearing aidmay be executed either by the telephone or by the hearing aid itself. Inan embodiment it is executed by the contralateral hearing aid, uponreceipt of the DTMF signal. Whether the telephone handles the adjustmentor the hearing aid handles it, it is a similar process. The interfacecircuit within the telephone receives an analog signal according to theDTMF signal sent from the dispenser, and converts this signal into adigital signal. The digital signal is recognized by the signalprocessor. The signal processor adjusts the parameter settings in theEEPROM according to the instructions from the dispenser. When theinstructions are read into the EEPROM of the particular hearing aid, adigital bit sequence to acknowledge the adjustment will be sent to thetelephone using the wireless link, where it triggers an acousticmessage, which is converted into a corresponding analog signal and issuperimposed onto the analogue microphone signal. The ordinary telephonesignal processing unit will send it over the telephone network tosignify to the dispenser that the adjustment was successful, or in casethat the adjustment was not successful, that a readjustment should bemade, or it may send a message indicating why there was a problem withthe adjustment.

As mentioned, the adjustment may be executed either by the telephone orby the hearing aid. Controlling the adjustment from the telephone willhave the advantage that the telephone can be adapted to inhibitstreaming of sound to the hearing aid, while the programming is goingon. Further, the telephone interface circuit can be adapted to detectwhether an acknowledge signal has been received within due time, andcould indicate this to the dispenser.

Adjusting a hearing aid as described can be used for many differentsituations, of which a few will be described next.

New hearing aid users will often go through an acclimatization period,when they receive their first hearing aid, where the gain of the hearingaid is gradually increased over time, because it would otherwise be toooverwhelming for the user, if the hearing aid was set from the onset tofully compensate for the hearing loss that the user had gotten used toover time. This acclimatization period can be controlled by thedispenser, by way of the user visiting the clinic twice during the first6 months to get the hearing aid adjusted. Or the acclimatization can bemade automatically based on the number of days and hours the hearing aidhas been used. According to the invention, the acclimatizationadjustment of the gain settings can be carried out during a telephoneconversation with the dispenser.

Due to the limited amount of non-volatile memory in hearing aids, themanufacturers have to limit the options of logging information about theoperation of the hearing aid. With the use of the present invention, thedispenser can easily reprogram the hearing aid to log data regardingdifferent hearing aid parameters or log all possible parameters in alimited time period. If a hearing aid user calls the dispensercomplaining about issues that the dispenser may not recognize thesolution to, the dispenser may via DTMF tones change the hearing aidlogging mechanism to a more aggressive setting or change the logging toconcentrate on a specific acoustical area. A number of hours or dayslater, the dispenser will call back to the hearing aid user. Thedispenser can then read out the log via DTMF tones and together with theuser zoom in on the experienced problem, and adjust the hearing aidappropriately, without the user having to come into the clinic.

Some hearing aids have a service alarm, which can be set to play amessage to the user after a preset time interval, to remind the user tobook an appointment with the dispenser for a service check. According tothe present invention, this alarm can be activated, deactivated, reset,etc. over the telephone.

Some high-end binaural hearing aid systems which communicate wirelesslywith each other have a partner alarm system. The partner check and alarmmay be enabled or disabled by use of the present invention.

The characteristics of the electrical components may drift over time,whereby the optimal tuning can be altered. This is also the case withthe hearing aid antenna circuit. In most cases, the wireless link willstill work, it just requires more energy, than if it had an optimaltuning. With the present invention, the fine tuning of the antennacircuit may be initiated by the dispenser over the telephone. There maybe other kinds of similar analysis made in this way. E.g. a self testanalysis, where the hearing aid checks the hearing aid components, couldbe initiated in this way. For such analysis of the functioning of thehearing aid, it is often desired to be able read out the result of theanalysis. It is in general desirable for the hearing aid dispenser toget a message back about the status of the hearing aid, or whether thewireless connection is active. E.g. if the telephone can communicatewith the contralateral hearing aid but not with the ipselateral hearingaid, there is a problem with the radio of the ipselateral hearing aid,or the ipselateral hearing aid may simply have been turned off, or outof battery. Such status requests are easily made, using the proposedsystem.

When hearing aids are set up for the specific user, part of the fittingprocedure is to create a nominal model for the feedback path. This isused by an anti feedback system, to prevent the hearing aid from howlingdue to feedback. If the procedure for creating this model was notperformed at all or performed with insufficient accuracy or the ear hasgrown, or other parameters have changed, that makes the model lessaccurate, and the user may encounter feedback howling. With the use ofthe present invention, the dispenser may initiate a test to update thefeedback path model. However, if the telephone is held near the ear, theacoustic path will change dramatically, making a model obtained underthese conditions unsuited for the purpose. This can be overcome by usingthe contralateral hearing aid as a relay device when performing thistest. When a new feedback model is created for the left hearing aid, thetelephone is held up to the right ear, and the right hearing aid is thenused to control the test of the left hearing aid. As part of thecommunication protocol between the hearing aid and the telephone, onebit may be reserved as a check bit to let the dispenser know whether thecommunication goes through the left or right hearing aid, to ensure thatthe feedback test is performed at the contra lateral hearing aid.

Many hearing aids use spoken messages to acknowledge to the user when headjusts the volume or changes program. Even though these messages areadjusted in volume according to the users hearing loss, the user mightfind the sounds of these messages too soft or too loud. They might evenbe too loud in some acoustic environments and too soft in otherenvironments. The same applies when using the telecoil in theatres etc.These sounds may be adjusted according to the present invention.Furthermore, the volume control on the hearing aid may beenabled/disabled is this way. This may be useful in case it is a childwearing the hearing aid and the child plays with the volume control oftheir hearing aid, so that sounds are suddenly too loud or too soft tohear.

In some hearing aid systems, the user may be able to influence theamplification strategy. For instance, the hearing aid may graduallyadapt according to the users wishes in specific sound environments.Despite the advantages of such a system, there is a risk that this couldderail the optimal fitting strategy. It may therefore be beneficial tobe able to go back to the original fitting strategy, by calling thedispenser to get the hearing aid reset.

Programmable hearing aids today may have a huge amount of settings andprograms available, which the dispenser can offer the hearing aid user.The difference between a high-end product and a cheaper version may verywell be a matter of choosing to enable or disable features, programs,accessories etc. The user may after a while choose to upgrade thehearing aid or may want to hide programs or settings that are not used.Furthermore, the dispenser has the option of adding sound features likecompression, expansion, noise reduction, frequency transposition or-compression. Such features might improve the sound quality, but theuser might not be able to adapt to the changed sound picture. Thedispenser is now able to try out these settings and programs, withoutthe user having to revisit the clinic to add a program or modify aninappropriate or unpleasant setting, by making a phone call to thehearing aid clinic. Even adding accessories for the hearing aid, likeremote controls, or enabling new hardware devices within the hearingaid, may be possible without the user having to go to the clinic.Hardware devices within the hearing aid may be enabled via DTMF, andaccessories may be mailed to the user. Pairing the accessory with thehearing aid is then performed over the telephone.

We claim:
 1. A telephone adapted for communicating with a hearing aid,said telephone comprising a telephone loudspeaker, an electrical signalline for exciting the loudspeaker, a radio transceiver adapted forcommunicating with a hearing aid radio unit, and an interface circuit,said interface circuit having an analogue to digital converter, saidinterface circuit being connected to obtain an electrical signal fromsaid electrical signal line and being adapted for converting saidelectrical signal into a digital signal by the analog to digitalconverter and for transmitting said digital signal to the hearing aid,using said radio transceiver.
 2. The telephone according to claim 1,wherein the interface circuit is further connected to the telephonemicrophone.
 3. The telephone according to claim 1, wherein theactivation of the telephone when placing or receiving a call enables theradio transceiver for communication with a hearing aid.
 4. The telephoneaccording to claim 1, wherein a bias voltage for the telephonemicrophone enables the radio transceiver.
 5. The telephone according toclaim 1, wherein the telephone is adapted for adjusting one or moreparameters of the hearing aid via said radio transceiver.
 6. Thetelephone according to claim 1, wherein the interface circuit is adaptedto receive and process data from said hearing aid, and wherein theinterface circuit is adapted to convert data from the hearing aid intoan analogue signal and to superimpose the analogue signal onto themicrophone signal of the telephone.
 7. The telephone according to claim1, wherein the telephone is adapted to initiate a test of the acousticparameters of a contralateral hearing aid.
 8. A hearing aid comprising aradio circuit adapted for communication with a telephone, said telephonehaving a telephone loudspeaker, an electrical signal line for excitingthe loudspeaker, a radio transceiver adapted for communicating with saidhearing aid radio circuit, and an interface circuit, said interfacecircuit being connected to obtain an electrical signal from saidelectrical signal line and being adapted for converting said electricalsignal into a digital signal by an analog to digital converter and fortransmitting said digital signal to the hearing aid using said radiotransceiver, wherein parameters of the hearing aid can be adjusted bytones sent over a telephone network to said telephone and from there tothe hearing aid radio circuit.
 9. The hearing aid according to claim 8,adapted for communicating with the telephone via DTMF tones sent overthe radio circuit.
 10. The hearing aid according to claim 8, adapted fortuning electrical components of the hearing aid upon detection of apredetermined tone signal.
 11. The hearing aid according to claim 8,adapted for tuning an antenna of the radio circuit.
 12. The hearing aidaccording to claim 8, adapted for initiating a test of the acousticproperties upon detection of a predetermined tone signal.
 13. Thehearing aid according to claim 12, adapted for relaying a control signalto a contralateral hearing aid, when detecting a request to measure theacoustic properties.
 14. A method for adjusting parameters of a hearingaid comprising: selecting a first telephone, said first telephone havinga telephone loudspeaker, an electrical signal line for exciting theloudspeaker, a radio transceiver, and an interface circuit; obtaining bysaid interface circuit an electrical signal from said electrical signalline; converting said electrical signal into a digital signal by ananalog to digital converter; transmitting said digital signal to thehearing aid using said radio transceiver; sending a tone sequence fromsaid first telephone to the hearing aid; determining by said hearing aidwhether the tones contain an adjustment code for adjusting saidparameters of the hearing aid; and, in the affirmative, adjusting theparameters of the hearing aid.
 15. The method according to claim 14,wherein the tones are generated at a computer, or at a second telephone,and transmitted to said first telephone via a telecommunicationsnetwork.
 16. The method according to claim 14, wherein the tone sequenceis decoded to generate a bit sequence, said decoding being performed insaid first telephone.
 17. The method according to claim 14, wherein thetone sequence is decoded to generate a bit sequence, said decoding beingperformed in the hearing aid.
 18. The method according to claim 14,wherein the hearing aid relays the wireless signal from the telephone toa contralateral hearing aid.
 19. A method for communicating between atelephone and a hearing aid, the telephone having a telephoneloudspeaker, and an electrical signal line for exciting the loudspeaker,comprising the steps of: providing in the telephone a radio transceiverand an interface circuit; connecting the interface circuit to theelectrical signal line for obtaining an electrical signal from theelectrical signal line; converting the electrical signal into a digitalsignal; and transmitting by the radio transceiver the digital signal tothe hearing aid.
 20. The method according to claim 19, comprisingreceiving in the interface circuit data from a hearing aid via a radiolink, and superimposing a signal received from the hearing aid onto thetelephone microphone signal.